Taking Chances
by Jaenelle Angelline
Summary: Goliath and Elisa arive at a mutual agreement to help each other.


Taking Chances

He stood on the upper ramparts of Castle Wyvern, a tall, silent figure that looked not unlike the stone of the castle itself, or of the stone he would become at sunrise. Granite. Cold, forbidding, stark; unapproachable and unassailable.

She knew better.

"Good evening," she said as she approached from behind him, not even bothering to identify herself; he'd know who it was. "Sleep well?"

He turned, and the stone façade cracked, as she'd known it would. Goliath's craggy lavender face broke into a smile, making his forbidding countenance suddenly somehow—less forbidding. "Good evening, Elisa."

He had to smile when he saw her; he couldn't help it. He'd never considered humans beautiful before; Demona had been _his_ ideal of beauty. Now, however…well, he'd learned that there were more kinds of beauty than just the physical; had learned to value the beauty of a true soul, learned that honesty, affection, and integrity had a beauty all on their own, separate from whatever the species of body that housed it. And, truth to tell, the long, thick, blue-black hair and big brown eyes _were_ attractive. "How was your day?"

She sighed and snugged the collar of her red jacket tighter around her neck; it was a slightly breezy evening in late fall, with a hint of winter creeping in on the night wind. "The usual. Muggings, robberies, two homicides, and oh, Tony Dracon's starting something over on the Lower East side, so you might want to let the guys know to keep an eye out for trouble."

"Brooklyn is patrolling the Lower East Side. I'll let him know." Goliath turned away from his contemplation of the city skyline below and took a few steps away, speaking quietly into one of the microphones that Elisa had 'borrowed' from Equipment Requisition at the precinct and 'forgotten' to return. The wind was blowing in the opposite direction, so she didn't hear the conversation; that was okay, she didn't need to. Goliath and the rest of the Manhattan Clan had a protective streak a mile wide—it seemed to be hardwired into them, after all—and their attention would be focused on 'work' until 'work' was over with.

She heard the slight _crackle_ of static as he finished his conversation with Brooklyn and signed off, and moments later, his tall, strong form was behind her, and one of his wings was caped over her shoulder. "You are cold," he said to her as his arm crept around her; an unconsciously protective gesture she found touching.

When they'd first met, she'd found that subconscious need to _protect_ irritating: she could take care of herself very well, thank you very much—but she'd gradually come to realize he didn't do it intentionally; it was simply a part of who and what he was, and he could no more stop trying to protect her than he could stop breathing. At some point, she'd stopped being 'the human' to the Clan and become one of the Clan, and that meant everyone protected everyone else. She didn't know why; she simply accepted that this was how it was, and tried to adjust. And when he did become overprotective she'd remind him, gently, and he'd back down—slightly. "I know you and the others don't feel cold the way humans do, Goliath, but I do find it a little chilly up here."

"Then let us go in," he started, but she stopped him.

"Let's stay out here a bit longer. It's been a long day at work and I need to unwind right now before I go home and hit the sack. Otherwise I'll have nightmares tonight." She shuddered. "That body we found in the alley off Canal Street—ugh."

He didn't say anything further, but stepped up behind her and pressed his bulk up against her back, caping his wings around them both. When he and his Clan had first woken up here in Manhattan, he'd believed that humans, having attained this level of civilization, would have discovered similarly civilized ways of dealing with their personal disagreements. He'd quickly learned otherwise; if anything, humans today killed more of each other than they had when he and the Clan had been in Scotland, and they had developed many more ways to do the job, too. There were times when the bodies the Clan saw in 1995 Manhattan didn't look all that dissimilar to the bodies they'd seen on Scotland's battlefields in 995 AD, and he knew they hadn't seen the worst that humans could devise to kill each other. He understood Elisa's loathing and disgust, and her need to exorcise the demons of the day before she slept. In 995 AD, women didn't go out onto the battlefield, and efforts were made to shield them from this kind of violence and bloodshed; but 1995 was different, and Elisa was made of tougher stuff than the women of that earlier era. Still, there were times when her job got to her, and he was sensitive enough to her moods by now to know when things were bothering her. He couldn't do anything about it, but sometimes just being with her could help lighten her mood, and he was happy to do it.

She was tense when he stepped up to her, the muscles in her shoulders knotted up so tightly that she could feel the beginnings of a headache behind her eyes. As she leaned against his solid, comforting bulk, though, she could feel herself starting to relax, and she just nestled against him for long moments, enjoying the feel of being able to lean up against something stronger than herself, if only just for a moment. Being with Goliath just helped put things into perspective, sometimes; whatever happened to her, or in her every day life, even if she died tomorrow, life was still going to go on. It had for the Gargoyles.

Lost in her own musings, it was a while before she realized Goliath was being even quieter than usual. Turning her head a fraction upwards, she saw him looking out over the city, lost in thought. She didn't want to disturb him—it was so rare that they got quiet moments like this that she wanted to treasure the peace and solitude, but eventually curiosity prompted her to speak. "Penny for your thoughts."

He heaved a sigh. "Things are so different here, and yet they're not," he said meditatively. She waited for further explanation, but none was forthcoming.

She dismissed that. She had her own secrets, things in her life that she didn't discuss with anyone, thoughts that she didn't talk about. Everyone should have privacy. She wasn't going to intrude on his. "I don't really know much about your life before Manhattan, and there are times when I'm not sure I really want to know."

"There are things I still don't know about your world—our world, now," he amended with a sigh. "Things I still have to discover that might be a danger to my Clan. I don't have a future figured out for us yet, but I have to think about those things, as Clan leader."

"But sometimes life isn't like that," Elisa said quietly. "Sometimes you can't have everything planned out, figured out, in advance. And there are times, even, when you do have everything figured out, and life throws you a curveball. You're not prepared for it, but you have to try and catch it anyway. And sometimes you go to sleep with the world one way, and wake up the next and it's something you never even dreamed of, like flying machines and wireless communications." She smiled wryly. "Then you just have to take a chance. Jump off the edge even without knowing there's ground under you. At least you will have tried."

He still looked pensive. "My clan will have to start again, in this new world, Elisa. And we don't know how."

"Then I'll show you how to try." Elisa hugged his arm, draped protectively across her chest. "I'll take a chance, too. Take you guys in, show you everything you need to know. And maybe together we'll all learn how to fly."

He looked down and smiled at her. "Then we shall both take chances together, as you put it. But tonight is not the time. You are tired. Why not go home and sleep now? When do you need to be back at work?"

"Midnight tomorrow night. I have today off, and then I start the night shift rotation tomorrow night." And she was tired; she could feel her eyelids getting heavy.

"Then I will take you home now, and I will pick you up at home tomorrow night," he said as he swept her up in his arms and unfolded his huge wings, snapping them open and stretching them out. A leap with his powerful legs took them up into the air, over the ramparts, and there was that dizzying, exhilarating moment of freefall before he caught a thermal and glided upwards into the night sky. Elisa nestled against him as the wind of flight started to chill her again.

_Don't know much about your life_

_Don't know much about your world, but_

_Don't want to be alone tonight_

_On this planet they call earth_.

_You don't know about my past, and_

_I don't have a future figured out._

_And maybe this is going too fast_

_And maybe it's not meant to last…_

_But what do you say to taking chances?_

_What do you say to jumping off the edge?_

_Never knowing if there's solid ground below,_

_Or hand to hold,_

_Or hell to pay…_

_What do you say?_

_What do you say?_

_I just wanna start again._

_Maybe you could show me how to try—_

_Maybe you could take me in_

_Somewhere underneath your skin…_

She'd heard that song on the radio before; she couldn't remember if she had liked it or not, but somehow, given the conversation she'd had with Goliath this evening, it seemed apropos. She left the radio on, listening, as she undressed and slipped into bed, and waited until it was over before she turned off the radio on her night table that she usually left on for Cagney so the cat wouldn't get lonely. Goliath and his Clan were already well underneath her skin, somewhere in the region of the left side of her chest, and not likely to be going anywhere. As she slipped into a light drowse, preparatory to going to sleep, she smiled to herself. Life did indeed throw some _very_ interesting curveballs, and she'd always been the one in the family to take chances…


End file.
